Monday, December 3, 2012

The Depot that once was at Frizell, Kansas, in Pawnee County. The
1965-1966 school year was the last classes to go through the school,
said Katie Kecheisen, education director and archivist for the Santa Fe
Trail Center near Larned.
Anna Bassford, director of the center, said the L'Dora school and the Frizell
depot were moved to the museum grounds in 1970. The school has
undergone regular upkeep. The depot, however, was recently renovated
using the original blueprints from 1929. It opened to the public for the
first time last month.
Kecheisen said the depot now includes an exhibit on rail history.
The railroad still goes by the site of Frizell, but there is
nothing there but a few foundations of the elevator, along with the
current farming operation, said Don Deege, who still lives just west of the
fort.

The school house. Milburn Stone went to school at Frizell and worked at his parents store there. Established in 1859 along the Santa Fe Trail, Fort Larned was decommissioned in 1883.
A year later, the government sold the land, including a section that
contained the fort buildings to Frank Sage who represented the Pawnee
Valley Stock Breeders Association, according to the Kansas State
Historical Society.
The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad went through in 1886. A
siding - which allowed trains to pass on the same line - was constructed
at the future town site and designated Sage in honor of Frank Sage.
The site had a schoolhouse, which was established in 1889.
E.E. Frizell purchased the fort in 1902 and the name of the station changed to Frizell, according to an article in the Dec. 26, 1929 edition of the Larned Chronoscope.
Frizell, a state legislator along with being a rancher and
entrepreneur, helped build the little station town, according to the
Chronoscope article.
A post office was established in 1904. Dora Arnold, wife of Lee Arnold, the town merchant, was postmistress, the article stated.
The school burned down and was rebuilt in 1906, named L'Dora, after L'Dora Frizell, Redding's great-grandmother.
In 1929, according to the article, the town had a depot, siding for
freight cars, filling station, feed and grain business, one elevator and
"a modern school." The town had a population of 40, with more than half
of the residents Mexicans employed by the railroad and area farmers.

Monday, October 29, 2012

Feterita, Kansas. I'm looking for anyone who can help me with this dead
town. I took this pictures in the summer of 2012 on my way to Elkhart
for a June wheat harvest story. Elkhart Co-op Equity Exchange does have
bins there, as well.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

I wrote about Ash Valley a while back, but here is information on an old gravestone, maybe one of the oldest gravestones in the state! Click here for the story of Ash Valley and its birth and death. Here's a photo I stumbled across in an email I received a while back from a reader.

From The News Another remnant is about a mile east of town, a limestone marker honoring a man who died before Kansas was a state.
Cliff Line, a former resident of Ash Valley, was digging a
post hole in 1916 when he hit a rock. When he unearthed it, he found
lettering on it and realized it was a grave from 75 years earlier.
The stone said:
A.D. 1841 June
W.D Silver Shot with (below shows the carving of an arrow).
Speculation is he died from an Indian attack. The site, according to an article from the time in the The
News, is 30 miles from the Santa Fe Trail and the man could
have been hunting before he was attacked. The railroad erected a monument that still stands today along the former railroad line.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Then, in 1950, U.S. 36 highway was built through Scandia township and a
new overpass was constructed over the railroad tracks at Rydal. A large
park was built for tourists just east of Rydal on the highway.
But the hustle and bustle of the little town would soon come to an end.
According to the June 5, 1952 edition of the Telescope, a fire broke out
that year at the elevator.

Mrs. Amos J. Dickerman, Rydal, postmistress, gave the first alarm. "I
was wakened by a crash like "thunder, and looked out the window. When I
saw the sky was clear, I looked to see if a car had wrecked on the
highway. Then I saw the glare of the fire ... It was burning all over,
with the flames swirling and sparks flying everywhere."
But as crews put one fire out, the hot ashes landed on the roof of the Presbyterian Church, Dooley said.

1951 aerial of Rydal
Rydal, Kansas, was as ordinary as any town planted in Kansas in the late 1800s.

The Rydal Giants played their regular
weekly game of baseball for practice on the home diamond in the pasture
near Rydal Saturday afternoon and under their able manager and captain
it is safe to say it will soon be in the shape to play any team in the
county. - May 31, 1907William
Johnson, of near Rydal, shipped a carload of hogs of his he was raising
to Kansas City, loading them at Rydal Thursday morning. - Dec. 2, 1920About 30 from the Rydal community enjoyed a basket dinner at the Rydal church basement. - June 13, 1946

But those taking a trip by the town that seemed to come to life from the
pages of the Belleville Telescope will find little left.

1935 photo of grocery store owned by William West. Rydal is a dead
town in Republic County. These photos are courtesy of the Republic
County historical society

My Dear Santa: - I
am a little boy 8 years old. I live at Rydal, Kansas. I go to No. 9
school. We are going to have a program at our school. Will you please
bring me a desk with pigeonholes in it and a chair and a storybook? I am
in the third grade. I have one brother and one sister. Please give lots
of toys and candy and things to the poor children that have no parents.
Santa, you are a jolly fellow. The 25th of Dec. is Christmas.Yours Truly -Charles B. Beymer Jr.- Belleville Telescope, Dec. 16, 1910

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

"A town is a ghost town because there is nobody there," said Inman Elementary student Dantlie Raney. "Everybody left it."

It's part of teacher Bentley Richert's Kansas history lesson. Most of
his students didn't know the definition of a ghost town, or that Kansas
has more than 6,000 of them - towns that expanded with dreams of a
future before disappearing from most maps.

However, armed with their iPads, these fourth-graders have a quest to
memorialize the ghost town of Covert in Osborne County, which has been
dead since the last postmark was stamped in 1966.

"We are going to put the flesh on the bones of Covert," said Kaia
Wiggins, 9. "We are trying to find out what happened to the town."

The project started after Kevin Honeycutt, ESSDACK's technology
integration specialist, read about Covert's story in the Sept. 30
edition of The Hutchinson News. Honeycutt, on his way to Nebraska to
train teachers about using technology in the classroom as part of his
job through the educational service center, made a stop at Covert.

Monday, October 8, 2012

On my way back from a trip to Covert, Kansas, I decided to stop by Galt - or what is left of the former Rice County town.

A reader has suggested the project a few years ago, and I was only about eight or so miles from the site as I traveled back to Hutchinson. Thus, I took the dirt roads and found a farmhouse with a sign displayed on the mailbox.

This is Delbert Hayes, who happened to be home and knows all the history of the little town. He wrote a paper while attending McPherson College in 1955 on the town's birth and its death. To read my latest ghost town story, click here.

Monday, October 1, 2012

Here are some photos of Covert, Kansas, a dead town in Osborne County.
Covert's history includes an unsolved murder, a legendary high school
basketball coach and a meteorite. Mona Winder Kennedy has a new book on
Covert's history. To order it, visit www.adastrallc.com/whatsnew.html or
call (785) 525-7784.

This is a photo of the town's first post office. It was actually
established before the town in 1873. Osborne County officials have done
some work to restore the log cabin structure but more work and funding
is needed.

The former elementary school.

Von walks up the stairs of this once elementary school. He was a great tour guide!

Mona Kennedy and Von walk the weedy streets of Covert. Mona wrote the book "Covert, Kansas: an evolution of a ghost town."

A sign at Covert High School talks of its famous son, winningest Kansas boys basketball coach John Locke.

This was the school's water tower. It was the only water source in Covert.

Here are the old fuel pumps. See where the glass was?

Inside the post office. Osborne leaders hope to someday restore this old structure and make Covert a walking historic site.

An old home still stands.

An old photo of the high school.

church

The day the last postage stamp was issued at the post office.

Winning basketball coach John Locke. In the 1925-26 season, the
school couldn't afford a basketball coach. Locke, a senior, asked if he
could coach and play. They let him and he lead the team to its only
state basketball tournament appearance.

Here's a video of Covert Kansas. This ghost town's last post mark was in 1966. The town was founded in 1880 by James Bradshaw. It was named after Covert creek, which was named after James Covert who died in the area from an Indian attack. For more on Covert, visit other entries in this blog.
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Friday, September 28, 2012

This is the story of Covert, Kansas and its murder story. Pictured below is the barn that Fred Kaser shot himself before going on trial for the murder of his brother, his brother's wife and the couple's six children. To read more about Covert, check out other entries in this blog.

It was nearly 11 p.m. when H. A. Moore and Ray Cronk – returning home
to Covert from Osborne – noticed a blaze of orange coming from the Albert Kaser
farm. The mass of flames had engulfed the entire residence and the two began to
notify residents in town with a call sent out on rural telephone line that
summoned the entire neighborhood.

Water, however, was limited. The school had a water tower, but
that was more than a mile away. Past control to even fight, residents watched
the fire eventual burn out and began sifting through the ruins. There, they
found the body of Albert near the front door of the home. His wife, Nellie
Kaser, 30, along with their children, Raymond, 12; Alberta, 10; Iona, 8;
Margarete, 6; Alvin, 4; and Katie Lee, 2, were all in what remained of their
beds.

Someone found empty revolver shells outside the house, but no
significance was attached to the discovery. They took the bodies to Fred
Kaser’s home to examine. But murder wasn’t immediate on the minds of residents.
They buried the family, blaming the horrific deaths to the tragic fire caused
from a oil stove that the family left burning, causing a gas that overcame the
family before the house caught fire.

But folks began talking soon after the funerals, Kennedy said. Some
had witnessed a quarrel between the brothers just a few weeks before in the
Covert general store.

The state fire marshal got involved and the bodies were exhumed.
Albert Kaser was shot in the chest, is wife in the abdomen. The children had
not been shot. Law enforcement found Fred had a gun using bullets similar to
those found in the bodies.

Evidence was circumstantial, but they put the bullets in the
Covert bank vault and the sheriff arrested Fred for murder. They planned to
bring him to trial. Fred’s father, David, posted his bond.

Hundreds packed the tiny Osborne County
courtroom to hear the preliminary hearings of the case that August. Throughout
the hearings, Fred maintained his innocence.

“I’ve never seen a guilty man who talked so straight,” the judge
later said. “He looked me straight in the eyes and said he was innocent. I did
not want to him to talk with me about the case, but he insisted on it.”

His trial date was set for Oct. 24., 1928.

Within a few weeks of the trial, Fred’s attorney quit because
Fred’s father, a well-to-do farmer, refused to bear the expense of the case.
Maybe Fred had taken everything to heart as he wrote a last note to his wife
and five children and to his father.

“Dear Wife and Children: I love you with all my heart, but this
is more of a burden than I can stand, when I never had nothing to do with it.
But forget me and enjoy life.

“P.E. – Dear Father, will you please give my share of the money
to Vera (Kaser’s wife) to keep the children with. You would not help me, but
please help them. Your son, Fred Kaser.

“… I am in the barn, call help before you come to the barn.”

Information taken from The Hutchinson News between June 1 and Oct. 24, 1928.Covert is a dead town in Osborne County. The ghost town's last post mark was in 1966. Today, not much is left of Covert.

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About Me

I'm an agricultural journalist for the Hutchinson News. I love Kansas - and I have a passion for telling stories centered on Kansas agriculture, rural life and Kansas history. I've been chronicling Kansas' dead towns for The News - through this blog and newspaper stories - since 2010. Many are featured in the book "Dead Towns of Central and Western Kansas."